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Monday, May 21, 2012

Jazz Shuttle

The Jazz Shuttle scheme has been set up by SACEM (the French PRS), Afijma (the French jazz festival organisation) with support from a few venues/festivals in the UK(e.g Vortex, Cheltenham Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Manchester). British and French musicians need to share the stage in new music and/or new up-and-coming line-ups.

At Coutances last week, the seventh gig of the first tour was shown off. Tweedledee (photo above) is where the two dynamic collectives, Loop in London and Coax from Paris, get together under the leadership of Robin Fincker, who's becoming more French again by the day. They've played a few festivals so far, including Cheltenham (with a review from Jazzmann), Banlieues Bleues and the Vortex. Whether there's a London Jazz Festival gig remains unclear, but there will hopefully be a recording made later in the year.

Two new projects were agreed for late 2012/2013:

Barbacana - Kit Downes, James Allsopp, Sylvain Darrifourcq (of Q) and Adrien Dennefeld (of Ozma). Previous gig reviewed here. A London gig will take place at the Vortex on 16 November (double bill with Kit's quintet) and a new album will appear on Babel around then.

Blink/Mediums
Robin Fincker, Alcyona Mick, Paul Clarvis, Vincent Courtois (cello), Daniel Erdmann (tenor saxophone or Das Kapital). It will focus in particularly on the music of Vincent Courtois. He already appears on the new Blink double album. http://babel-label.bandcamp.com/album/twice, and his trio the Mediums has played a number of times already in France. So it builds on an existing partnership. And all the better for that. They'll probably start at the Vortex late in 2012.

More projects on the way for this scheme, I'm sure. It's great that the French have taken the bull by the horns to get this on the road. It's based on the optimism and energy of the jazz scenes here and in France. The collaborations have been growing again over the past couple of years. Hans Koller is doing a quartet involving François Theberge, while Denis Badault's quartet involves Tom Arthurs. Tom has also just been on tour with Benoît Delbecq in Canada. Of course, there's also Trio Libero in which Andy Sheppard uses bass player Michel Benita and Bojan Z's trio for the past few years has had the Acoustic Ladyland rhythm section of Seb Rochford and Ruth Goller. Within the improv scene, of course, the interactions have been steady and strong. Too many to mention there.